I. Purpose
Sandia California's Telecommuting Pilot Program began on October 31, 1993
for a one year period. The primary purpose of the program was to:
Assess the impact of telecommuting on Sandia's work environment.
Determine the consequences of telecommuting for managers and employees,
including quality of life.
Evaluate the opportunities created by telecommuting for employment of,
and the enhancement of working life for, persons with disabilities.
Test performance management approach as a key tool for successful telecommuting.
Estimate the impact of telecommuting on reducing traffic congestion.
Fine tune the guidelines for expanding the program to the New Mexico
site.
II. Introduction
In order to assess the success of the pilot program, a survey of the 22
telecommuters and 19 managers of telecommuters was completed on September
7, 1994. Responses were received from 18 telecommuters and 16 managers on
a wide range of questions encompassing the following areas:
productivity,
employee autonomy and motivation,
short-term management issues,
long-term management issues,
psychological factors,
social factors, and
cost/benefit comparisons.
The survey results were very positive and strongly in favor of
continuing the telecommuting program. Attached are the compilation of
the surveys (managers and employees) results along with interesting and
informative comments received from the managers and employees.
III. Executive Summary
The overall assessment of telecommuting was that it is an effective
work option. Both managers and employees overwhelmingly rated that the benefits
of telecommuting are "greater" or "much greater" than
the disadvantages. The following is a short synopsis of the major areas
of the survey results.
In three areas, telecommuting was found to be highly positive:
productivity (including the amount and quality of work produced);
employee autonomy and motivation (especially due to flexibility);
competitive advantage over companies without a telecommuting option.
Several areas of potential difficulty turned out *not* to be problems, including:
manager's expectations and communication of those expectations;
social factors, such as social/professional interaction and attitudes
of others toward the telecommuter;
the manager's comfort level with remote staff;
environmental factors (including distractions, adequate work space and
support service availability).
To a limited degree, some managers identified problems in the following
areas:
lack of availability of telecommuter for meetings;
a need for additional training to deal with telecommuting.
In addition, some employees were concerned about:
their visibility to management if they telecommute often;
associates negative comments to them about "working" at home.
Productivity is the most crucial determinant of effectiveness from
a management viewpoint. Some managers see telecommuting as a threat because
telecommuters are not under direct supervision when not in the office. Telecommuting
productivity has to be measured on results, not on the subjective evaluation
that since someone is present in the office he or she "must be"
working in a productive fashion. Many managers and employees in the pilot
project developed new work methods characterized by the new Performance
Management system which is goal / results oriented.
The great majority of mangers rated their employees " more productive"
while telecommuting, and the rest of them rated their staff "about
equal". The amount of time for staff persons to produce the same type
of work was equally distributed between taking "less" time or
"about equal" the amount of time. The managers rated the quality
of work produced either "about equal" or "higher" than
before. Telecommuting, then impacted employee productivity only in
a positive manner.
Attraction and retention of good employees is another important aspect
of the telecommuting program. Both managers and employees rated this aspect
equally between "strongly agree" and "agree". The reason
for this overwhelming response is based on a combination of a variety of
factors, which include:
providing alternatives to employees with long commutes. It allows the
employee to work productively at home and avoid "road burn-out";
facilitating work/family situations, giving flexibility to work out
difficult situations;
providing solutions to temporary problems (the pilot it has allowed
one employee to tend to a terminally ill relative on the east coast and
three employees have worked at home instead of being off full time on sickness
absence. These telecommuters are the nonregular telecommuters referenced
below.);
promoting a positive morale.
Environmental benefits is another factor that was positively impacted.
The survey statistics show that Sandian telecommuters (excluding nonregular
telecommuters):
telecommute an average of 1.37 days per week;
drove 1,185 fewer miles per week;
logged in 1,256 fewer minutes per week of stressful driving time.
The environmental impact is important and Sandia needs to strive to continue
to reduce it in the future. Currently it appears that Sandia has met its
1994 performance objectives, based on single vehicle ridership, from the
Bay Area Air Quality Control District. The concern is that if changes are
not made to reduce single occupant vehicles coming to Sandia, we will not
meet our future years objectives beginning in 1996. Also, the Bay Area Air
Quality Control District is currently discussing the possibility of making
future objectives more stringent and if this happens Sandia will have to
become even more creative in reducing single occupant vehicles coming to
Sandia.
General telecommuters statistics and demographics from the 18 employees
who responded to the survey are as follows:
72% drive alone to Sandia;
telecommuters would like to increase the amount of time they telecommute
(from 1.37 days/week to 2.08 days/week on the average);
average age is 35.7 years;
72% are female;
60% have children under 6 years of age;
average number of children is 1.22;
50% have a masters degree or higher;
95% are staff members;
50% are SMTSs, 11% are MLSs, and 16% are ASA-Cs;
average years at Sandia are 9.9;
83% are full time employees;
33% use only Sandia equipment and 55% use both Sandia's and their own;
and
55% use a Sandia installed phone line for computer connections to Sandia.
Based on the selection survey that was completed before telecommuting only
a few employees needed Sandia to purchase equipment for use at home. The
greatest expense in new equipment has been the installation of an additional
phone line to the home. This has been a very important addition to their
home office, allowing them to talk to an associate on one line while sending
or retrieving files via a modem.
IV. Recommendation
The overwhelmingly positive experience of California's pilot project, should
play a vital role in expanding the program corporate wide. The program should
be open to any nonrepresented employee (exempt and nonexempt) who
is self motivated, highly productive, works independently, and requires
minimal supervision. Also the employee should have strong management backing
and should be in the top performance categories used in the Performance
Management System (to assist managers in the selection of telecommuters).
Not all jobs or tasks are appropriate for telecommuting. The best fit is
from jobs that involve the handling of information (i.e. report writing),
require little face to face interactions with others, are project oriented,
and communications or transfer of information can take place when at the
office or by computer or telephone lines.
The expansion of the telecommuting program through out the corporation will
be relatively easy, since an extensive Telcommuter's Handbook is already
complete and other procedures have been in place throughout the pilot. The
most important aspect of spreading the program through out the corporation
is the education of management about the program and the attainment of management
support to allow employees to use the program. The approval level of the
Telecommuting Agreement should remain with the manager with an informational
copy of the agreement to the center director. Also, a technical liaison
is needed for the telecommuters in order to assist in answering questions,
i.e. computer connections and access.
We need to offer telecommuting to our employees to allow them increased
flexibility to balance the new demands of the work/family environment. It
will also be an added benefit to attract employees to Sandia.
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Johnson Home Page
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